Imagine Moscow

Interesting exhibition at the Design Museum tracing the history of post-revolution Russian design through six unrealised architectural projects.

The idea of using the six projects is clever in that each sets a theme but in some cases there seems to be very little on the actual project itself. For example the first section looked at Cloud Iron, El Lissitzky’s horizontal skyscraper which was used to show how images of aviation were used to show Communist ideals but there were only a few sketches of the actual imagined building.

It was interesting to ponder what some of these projects would have been like. Most of them had the gem of a good idea but it all felt like it was being imposed on people for their own good. I loved El Lissitzky’s idea for a health factory where workers could retreat and spend time in isolated rest cubical and get their food off conveyor belts in communal areas all with the idea of ‘productive rest’.

As with the Royal Academy show I loved the including of ceramics, textiles, posters and film in this show. Again it was the textiles which caught my eye plus I loved the first Soviet Sci-fi film “Aelita” with Constructivist sets and futurist costumes, very stylish!

Closes on 4 June 2017.

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